PETER N. FRASER, PETITIONER,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT
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Fraser, while on community control for unrelated offenses, challenged whether he could receive credit for time served on community control when he was resentenced to prison following reversal of an illegally imposed departure sentence. The Florida Supreme Court held that Fraser is entitled to credit for time served on community control because community control is a serious deprivation of liberty, and it would be inequitable to penalize him for the trial court's clerical failure to provide written sentencing reasons.
Yes, under the circumstances presented, Fraser is entitled to credit for time served on community control. The court held that because community control is a more coercive deprivation of liberty than probation or parole, prior cases denying such credit are inapplicable, and it would be unfair and inequitable to penalize Fraser for the trial court's clerical failure to provide written sentencing reasons.
[1] A defendant may receive credit for time served on community control when sentenced to a period of time under the Department of Corrections following a violation of commun…
[2] Community control is considered a more coercive deprivation of liberty and a more serious penalty than probation.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“Community control, which is a harsh and more severe alternative to ordinary probation, is a departure sentence when the guidelines call for any 'nonstate prison sanction.'”
Establishes that community control is a serious penalty more coercive than probation, making prior probation credit cases inapplicable
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFraser pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery and auto theft while on probation. The trial court imposed concurrent sentences and suspended them, placing F…
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BARKETT, Chief Justice.
We review State v. Fraser, 582 So. 2d 171, 172 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991), in which the district court certified two questions of great public importance.1
While on probation for unrelated offenses, Fraser pled guilty to unarmed robbery and auto theft. The court imposed concurrent sentences of five years’ imprisonment for the auto theft conviction and five and a half years’ imprisonment on the robbery conviction. The court suspended the sentences and placed Fraser on community control for five years and seven years respectively, which constituted a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines. Although the judge orally stated his reasons for the downward departure, he did not issue contemporaneous written reasons. The State appealed the sentence, and the district court reversed pursuant to Pope v. State, 561 So. 2d 554 (Fla.1990) (holding that where trial court fails to provide written reasons for departure, trial court must impose a guidelines sentence on remand). See State v. Fraser, 564 So. 2d 1262 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). At resentencing, the trial court again imposed the downward departure sentence and provided written reasons. The State again appealed, and the district court again reversed, but certified two questions of great public importance. The first question2 was subsequently answered in this Court’s opinion in Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063 (Fla.1992), holding that Pope applies retroactively. The second question asks:
When the trial court sentences a defendant to a period of time under the Department of Corrections, pursuant to a violation of community control, can he be given credit for time served on community control under section 921.161, Florida Statutes (1985)?
Fraser, 582 So. 2d at 172.
Under the circumstances presented here, we answer the question in the affirmative.
We note initially that this Court has already established that community control is a more coercive deprivation of liberty and a more serious penalty than probation. State v. Mestas, 507 So. 2d 587, 588 (Fla.1987) (“Community control, which is a harsh and more severe alternative to ordinary probation, is a departure sentence when the guidelines call for any ‘nonstate prison sanction.’ ”); Skeens v. State, 556 So. 2d 1113 (Fla.1990) (holding that stacking sentences of community control and probation is permissible). Consequently, cases finding that probation or parole should not be credited toward jail sentences are inapplicable to the question presented. See, e.g., Pennington v. State, 398 So. 2d 815 (Fla.1981); Simmons v. State, 217 So. 2d 343 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969), overruled on other grounds by Brumit v. Wainwright, 290 So. 2d 39 (Fla.1973).
In this case, Fraser was successfully completing a sentence of community control when he was informed that, through no fault of his own, the sentence was illegally imposed. We are not confronted here with a situation in which a defendant has transgressed and is therefore rightly facing an increased punishment. Nor are we faced with a defendant who has reaped an undeserved windfall, as in Cheshire v. State, 568 So. 2d 908 (Fla.1990), where the lower guideline sentence was the result of an erroneous miscalculation of the score-sheet. Here Fraser has not breached the trust placed in him by the trial court. He faces a four and a half year prison sentence now simply because of the trial court’s initial failure to provide contemporaneous written reasons for departure. We agree with Fraser that it would be unfair and inequitable to penalize him for a clerical mistake for which he was not responsible.
Therefore, we hold that Fraser is entitled to credit for the time he has served on community control. Accordingly, we answer the certified question, under the facts of this case, in the affirmative.
It is so ordered.
overton, McDonald, shaw, GRIMES, KOGAN and HARDING, JJ., concur. . We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4) of the Florida Constitution.
. Should Pope v. State, 561 So. 2d 554 (Fla.1990), be applied retroactively to sentences imposed prior to April 26, 1990?
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (24 total)
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Young v. State, 697 So. 2d 75 (Fla. 1997)…107 (Fla. 1980). Nor does the term "sentence” refer to community control. See Ogden v. State, 605 So. 2d 155, 159 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992)(finding that community control is generally not considered the equivalent of incarceration). . In Fraser v. State, 602 So. 2d 1299 (Fla.1992), we recognized a limited exception to this general rule. According to Fraser, a defendant is entitled to credit for time served on community control when the original term of community control is revoked as illegal. Id. at 1300. The excep…
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Ogden v. State, 605 So. 2d 155 (Fla. 5th DCA 1992)…d 1141 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988); Stranigan v. State, 457 So. 2d 546 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984). More recently, the supreme court stated that community control was “a more coercive deprivation of liberty and a more serious penalty than probation.” Fraser v. State, 602 So. 2d 1299, 1300 (Fla.1992). The court held in Fraser that where a defendant was about to successfully complete a sentence of community control when it was determined that such sentence was illegally imposed and the defendant is subsequently sentenced to impri…
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State v. Cregan, 908 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 2005)…hether a defendant may be given jail-time credit when the time spent in a drug rehabilitation facility was a condition of community control instead of probation. We first applied the jail-time credit statute to community control in Fraser v. State, 602 So. 2d 1299 (Fla.1992). Fraser involved the following certified question: ‘When the trial court sentences a defendant to a period of time under the Department of Corrections, pursuant to a violation of community control, can he be given credit for time served o…
Previewing 3 of 24 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited (12 total)
- Pope v. State, 561 So. 2d 554 (Fla. 1990)
- Rhoda Smith v. State, 598 So. 2d 1063 (Fla. 1992)
- Cheshire v. State, 568 So. 2d 908 (Fla. 1990)
- State v. Mestas, 507 So. 2d 587 (Fla. 1987)
- Doretha Pennington v. State, 398 So. 2d 815 (Fla. 1981)
- Brumit v. Louie L. Wainwright, 290 So. 2d 39 (Fla. 1973)
- Skeens v. State, 556 So. 2d 1113 (Fla. 1990)
- State v. Fraser, 564 So. 2d 1262 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990)
- Schreiber v. Schreiber, 217 So. 2d 343 (Fla. 3d DCA 1969)
- Simmons v. State, 217 So. 2d 343 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969)